84 replies to this topic

[jaydfox]

The move will most likely be tonight. We're going to go with a VPS solution, as I outlined previously. Making the move later tonight will:
A) give me more time to get pricing and performance questions answered from the provider(s) I'm talking to.
B) allow me to take the site offline during non-peak usage hours. This is somewhat of a moot point, since it's not like we're being heavily used as it is, given the routing blocks in place.

If anyone has suggestions, especially if you know someone that works for a VPS provider, that would be beneficial. The list I am currently using, based on recommendations, is (in alphabetical order):
A2B2
DEHE
EuroVPS
LiquidWeb
PowerVPS
Servint

A couple of these were quickly eliminated based on price, so it's narrowed down to two at the moment.

BTW, to this we could add Canaca, which offers VPS packages, and is a forum sponsor. They do not come as highly recommended (the PC way to put it), but most of the poor reports for their services are for shared hosting, which wouldn't apply to VPS (except billing complaints). So they were considered in good faith. In fact, depending on how big of a solution is needed, they might be reconsidered.

[jaydfox]

Billing arrangements at the new host are underway, but since it's the middle of the night, apparently they can't have it up and running in five minutes. [huh]

Therefore, the site will be moved tomorrow afternoon. I realize this is just about "peak" hours, so I apologize. The site will be down for several hours (down down, not just crippled down like it is now), perhaps well into the night. It just depends on how long it takes to move the server. Luckily I'll have root access to both servers, so I should be able to ftp directly from server to server, or even do a root backup (I've heard the term, but don't know what it entails. More research, goody!).

Yes folks, this is what you get when the only admin available hasn't used unix since college and has never run a web server before. Apologies for letting this languish; if I hadn't been so ignorant I could have had this done a few hours ago already. My ignorance in this area of expertise has cost the site another day of downtime.

[DJS]

Oh Jay, just shut up man. You rock. [thumb]

[daimewaku]

Right when I really need this site to help me write my research paper, its gone except for at my friends house.

jaydfox, my classmate and I own a dedicated server on amenworld.com in France. If you need something temporary over the weekend, I'll set you up with shell access, Full access to Plesk control panel and whatever else I can volunteer to provide until you guys get established. We still have about 60 + GIG of space, Unlimited traffic, and 4 static ip addresses RH 9.0 patched kernel. We actually own it for non-profit and my part comes from scholarship money to help pay for the server. I dont know if they are reliable under an attack but if it can help you guys over the weekend, I'll lend a hand.

[caliban]

Our current (previous?) host had 2 advantages: a dedicated server, good personal relations. There was no chance that slander or other malicious attack would lead her to close down the service without prior consultation - a very real danger with some other providers.
I would suggest a distributed approach, where some stable content remains hosted with Maggy, while some of the heavy duty work could be crunched elsewhere.
Canaca, our global sponsor seems like an obvious alternative.

[Lazarus Long]

(caliban)
I would suggest a distributed approach, where some stable content remains hosted with Maggy, while some of the heavy duty work could be crunched elsewhere.
Canaca, our global sponsor seems like an obvious alternative.

Agreed and consistent with the idea offered before of beginning to mirror many of our functions on a second site so that the forum doesn't ever experience down time due to breakdowns and other problems. I believe a mirror site would also mitigate a DoS attack as wouldn't that have to be targeting both sites simultaneously?

[Kalepha]

Doing awesome work, Jay. And I also thank you for keeping us updated.

[Live Forever]

Have we switched to the new host? I can access the site normally again! (without using Tor)

It may still be at the old place, and just had the upstream routing problem cleared up, though.

In any event, I am assuming everyone can access the site now.

[RighteousReason]

I haven't been able to access ImmInst at all for about 5 days.

Today was the first time it worked for me. I hope things are getting fixed up now.

[mrfesta]

Oh Jay just shut up man.  You rock.  [thumb]

agreed. You're doing a GREAT job with this!!

[kevin]

awesome job Jay..

[Bruce Klein]

Hats off to Jay!

We'll come back stronger than ever...

[Bruce Klein]

Also, big hug to Maggy (our hosting angel)!

[FunkOdyssey]

That sucked! Who knew that after I started this thread, I wouldn't be able to access the site again for five days? I better be careful what I post about in the future... [lol]

[jaydfox]

Actually, the site was down for 81 straight hours (about 3.5 days). However, in fairness, it was down for a couple hours earlier on Wednesday, and probably even late Tuesday for an hour or two, I forget now...

[DJS]

Jay

Actually, the site was down for 81 straight hours (about 3.5 days). However, in fairness, it was down for a couple hours earlier on Wednesday, and probably even late Tuesday for an hour or two, I forget now...

And with devastating effects. ImmInst junkies around the world were having serious bouts of "the shakes". [lol]

[jaydfox]

I actually got some work done for a change..

Heh, so did I. [wis]

[jaydfox]

If you're wondering why the site went down last night, I can say that it was not another DoS attack. It was scheduled maintenance by the hosting provider.

[FunkOdyssey]

Downtime is downtime.... *shakes his fist at our crappy host*

[Kalepha]

Come on, Jay. We know it was a UFO.

[FunkOdyssey]

Whats the status on the effort to secure a more reliable web host? I notice that we are currently allocating $15 monthly to this critical service. The saying "you get what you pay for" comes to mind...

[jaydfox]

Actually, we're getting what $45/mo could buy us, even though we only pay $15/mo, but yes, we need to move soon.

[Live Forever]

I have noticed a couple of times over the past couple weeks that I try to access the site, and get no response. Usually if I wait awhile and try again it works. I have no idea if this has anything to do with anything (other than my connection perhaps), but I thought I would bring it up.

[FunkOdyssey]

I have noticed a couple of times over the past couple weeks that I try to access the site, and get no response. Usually if I wait awhile and try again it works. I have no idea if this has anything to do with anything (other than my connection perhaps), but I thought I would bring it up.

Its not you -- I alternate accessing the site from a dedicated T1 line at work and a very reliable 15 Mbps connection at home, and I consistently experience all manner of "mini-outages" and other annoyances from both locations. Other websites and services work perfectly well at these times, which isolates the problem to imminst.org.

[jaydfox]

I've been wanting to avoid bringing this up, only to avoid giving LifeMirage the satisfaction, but it's not like he can't tell how effective he's being.

The site has been under various forms of attack for the past few weeks. Some forms have been rather benign, like the Wiki vandalism. Other forms have been more malicious, like hitting the site with a site crawler (masquerading as a browser) from a high bandwidth connection.

Last week he (well, the anonymous attacker) even went so far as to try a brute force attempt to compromise the root password of our webhost. For the most part, the more malicious attacks have been routed through relay servers in the Pacific Asia area (and other areas, like the Carribean), matching the pattern we observed when he (well, the anonymous attacker) spammed our website with pornography and obscene malicious attacks on members of leadership.

[jaydfox]

The DNS entry for imminst.org is currently missing and assumed hacked. This is beyond our control, and we apologize for the inconvenience. Of course, by the time you read this, the problem will have been fixed!

The hack occurred last night around 9:00 PM EDT. I'm guessing this based on the second to last post being shortly thereafter, and the third to last post being shortly before (the last post was three hours later, by a user who must have had a cached DNS entry). It's hard to say for sure when the hack occurred.

[RighteousReason]

Of course, by the time you read this, the problem will have been fixed!

[huh]

I hope things get worked out soon.

[RighteousReason]

I hope things get worked out soon

Woo hoo! [lol]

[Live Forever]

Yay, Imminst is back!